When June is here--what art have we to sing
The whiteness of the lilies midst the green
Of noon-tranced lawns? Or flash of roses seen
Like redbirds' wings? Or earliest ripening
Prince-Harvest apples, where the cloyed bees cling
Round winey juices oozing down between
The peckings of the robin, while we lean
In under-grasses, lost in marveling.
Or the cool term of morning, and the stir
Of odorous breaths from wood and meadow walks,
The bobwhite's liquid yodel, and the whir
Of sudden flight; and, where the milkmaid talks
Across the bars, on tilted barley-stalks
The dewdrops' glint in webs of gossamer.
THE GILDED ROLL.
Nosing around in an old box--packed away, and lost to memory for
years--an hour ago I found a musty package of gilt paper, or rather, a
roll it was, with the green-tarnished gold of the old sheet for the
outer wrapper. I picked it up mechanically to toss it into some
obscure corner, when, carelessly lifting it by one end, a child's tin
whistle dropped therefrom and fell tinkling on the attic floor. It
lies before me on my writing table now--and so, too, does the roll
entire, though now a roll no longer,--for my eager fingers have
unrolled the gilded covering, and all its precious contents are spread
out beneath my hungry eyes.
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